I am going on a short trip to visit my Mother, it is about 120 Kms. distance but the bus somehow always manages to take three hours on this trip. It is a nice trip you pass the coastal lowlands then a slight climb up some hilly country and then a descent to the Aguan Valley, a large valley with huge banana and palm oil farms plus a lot of cattle and smaller farms planted with grains. It is underdeveloped not much industry.
It is an important drug smuggling point though, small sized planes are all the time landing there in clandestine airfields in the early mornings, you can hear them not see them. Every once in a while the police will find an abandoned airplane with traces of drugs but very rarely do they catch anyone.
I remember a few years back an airplane was caught before making the delivery, the police left just a couple of guards and the people from the nearby communities swarmed them. I am talking of a haul of about 500 Kilograms of cocaine, the folks took about half. They had the local market cornered for over a year.
It is a nice valley though, extremely hot during the day, in summer well over 40 degrees but at night it gets cool like a desert, in fact you will find a lot of cactus all over the place. It also happens to be the only place in the world where you can find the Emerald Hummingbird, which is a UN protected bird.
Unfortunately it is raining so I think the trip will not be so attractive. But that is where I am going today.
what a beautiful shot that was done with this bird, looks like when you gave it a chance to take a picture of it. i like this picture.